“Google can’t admit in public that what they intend to do is eventually make Android proprietary,” said Tavis McCourt, an analyst at Morgan Keegan Equity Research. Despite Google’s protestations, Mr. McCourt says he believes that in two to three years — after Motorola increases its distribution channels in Europe, where it is weak compared to Samsung and others — Google will seek to start closing Android’s platform or begin building special features on its own phones that are not available to its “partners.”

It makes absolute sense for Google to buy Motorola. The last couple of weeks have seen Google take significant body blows to its Android vertical. First they lose the Nortel patents to Apple and Microsoft (among others) and then Apple comes out with its second quarter earnings statement to reveal that it now has $76 billion in the bank and making more than $10 billion in profit every quarter. Most of that is from iOS. Android is not making that kind of money for Google and the search giant has to be feeling that it missed an opportunity, especially considering that Apple only has 18.2% of the worldwide smartphone market and Android has 43.4%.

It will be very interesting to see what future Google-Moto devices offer that won’t be available on other platforms.